The Silverado Squatters

In 1880 Robert Louis Stevenson married an American divorcee, Fanny Osbourne.

Their honeymoon was unconventional. Because of his health, and from shortage of money, the pair decided to honeymoon for two months during a pleasant California summer in a 'squat', putting up makeshift cloth windows and hauling water in by hand from a nearby stream while at the same time dodging rattlesnakes. "The Silverado Squatters" provides some interesting views of California during the late 19th century.

Stevenson uses the first telephone of his life. He meets a number of wine growers in Napa Valley, an enterprise he deemed 'experimental'.

Stevenson also visits a petrified forest owned by an old Swedish ex-sailor who had stumbled upon it while clearing farmland - the precise nature of the petrified forest remained for everyone a source of curiosity.

Stevenson also details his encounters with a local Jewish merchant, whom he portrays as happy-go-lucky but always scheming to earn a dollar.

Like "Dickens in American Notes" (1842), Stevenson found much to admire in the United States, and he puts it down in his clear and always graceful prose.